Yeager Hits Another High

NEW YORK — Former Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager and professional golfer Juan

``Chi Chi`` Rodriguez topped the list of nine ``rags-to-riches`` Americans named Monday as winners of the 1986 Horatio Alger Award.

The awards, presented by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, have been given annually since 1947 to people who rose above adversity to stand out as role models and heroes.

The nonprofit association is made up solely of past recipients of the award. They include President Reagan, Mary Kay Cosmetics Chairman Mary Kay Ash, religious leader Norman Vincent Peale and heart surgeon Michael DeBakey.

Yeager, a retired Air Force brigadier general, was the first pilot to break the sound barrier.

Rodriguez, of Medino, Ohio, was born in poverty in Puerto Rico. Golf became his ticket to wealth and fame.

Among the other winners was William Farley of Chicago, son of a mailman and factory worker, who founded Farley Industries and turned it into the nation`s third-largest manufacturing company.

Love Smith, the association`s executive director, said this year`s winners were chosen ``at a time when Americans are searching for heroes and role models.``